Two Birds with One Stone Suggestion
 

Not to bring up Clams again, but..

One of the key points in the whole Clam debate is the relative lack of any Water-based Rituals of effectiveness, especially compared to Astral.

Well, here's an idea for a Water ritual that would make it much more useful:

5 Water Gems
Water-2 or -3
Enchantment-5 (or so; this can be tweaked)
Ritual

Target a province. One random non-artifact removable item in that province is stolen and placed on the casting mage. If the targeted province also has a lab, then items in the nation's lab inventory is also included in the pool to be stolen.

I believe the effect of this would be to start a magical 'tug-of-war' for control of Clams. Note that, late game, this isn't very effective because of the Dome spells. However, since it takes quite a while for Clamming to get out of hand, it's quite possible to stop it from ever getting off the ground, provided you know or can guess where the Clams are located.

The whole 'lab inventory' thing is included as a countermeasure, actually. Yes, you COULD steal a Clam of Pearls from that location, OR you might get the Bane Venom Charm that he has sitting in his labs for just this sort of occasion. If it isn't already, you might want to make sure that the Bane Venom Charm is non-removable. Though, IIRC its use in the Arena, it isn't removable.

Anyway, just my thoughts.

Scott

Re: Two Birds with One Stone Suggestion
 

Seems way overpowered. I'd use that spell to strip all the items off any enemy SC's, and to strip large armies of their Wine bags, leaving them starving. Even if the cost was made more in line with its power, stealing clams would be pretty low, priority-wise, because you would't be able to cast it enough to make a difference..

Also, the clam hoarder is likely far better equipped to spam this spell than his opponents would be, since he'd already have a good water gem income, and a bunch of water mages.

I'm not really an opponent of clams (within reason), but if you want a water-based ritual spell to combat clams, how about:
Salmonella- W7, 80 water gems- Global effect: Every clam holder has a 30% chance per clam per turn of getting diseased. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Two Birds with One Stone Suggestion
 

You'll go to lose massed scouts ... point.
With fever fetish, you give it to scouts.
When scout has 1 hitpoint, remove it and give to a new scout.
2 x scout ...

This isn't very damage dealing ...

Re: Two Birds with One Stone Suggestion
 

Creative. but it doesnt feel very watery. more like an astral spell.

[ May 28, 2004, 00:05: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Re: Two Birds with One Stone Suggestion
 

I still like my simple, sense-making, clam fix:

All the clams in the game only generate a maximum number of astral pearls equal to the number of sea provinces on the map. If the world holds more clams than seas, then only certain random clams chosen each month, will get pearls, up to that number.

Self-balancing, and scales with the map.

PvK

Re: Two Birds with One Stone Suggestion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Nice. Except that in the pros and cons list, one of the things listed as an pro was that it was one of the few things Atlantis had going for it.

It made me think though. What if only a water-mage could use it? Dont we have oher items like that? (the only thing that come to mind at the moment is the stupid crown that only Ermor can use but I keep getting from indies)

Re: Two Birds with One Stone Suggestion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It was written to be strong, yes. It needs to be less than a Clam if it is to control them, though.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Added bonus: It relieves SCs of their equipment, which really puts the hurt on SCs. I thought limiting SCs was also something on a wish list? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">While more of an issue, this would make people break their armies down into smaller bites, something that I feel should be done anyway.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Really? This spell costs half as much as a Clam, so I _should_ be able to cast this twice as much, if I have the mages to do it.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, if he's stealing stuff, he isn't making Clams, now is he? That was rather the point of the exercise, wasn't it...?

Another option would be a Fire item-destroying Ritual (which would be quite useful).

Scott

Re: Two Birds with One Stone Suggestion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes, I'm aware of that. Unfortunately, do we really WANT Astral to get more powerful? If you made this Astral, at any level, the game would devolve TOWARDS Clams even faster, IMO.

I originally thought of putting it in Air (Thieving Magpie, anyone?), but Water needs the boost much more than Air.

Scott

Re: Two Birds with One Stone Suggestion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Errr... that just restricts who can use the Clam-hoarding strategy, right? Off the top of my head, this would restrict Clam-hoarding to:

Pythium
Atlantis
Caelum
Rlyeh (sort of)
Arco
Tien Chi

Rlyeh _really_ gets hit by this. They can't afford to use their 280g non-sacred mage to hold Clams.

OTOH, Pythium is the big winner. A 150g Sacred Theurge (which can be recruited in all castles) easily holds the Clams. They also have natural income in both Water _and_ Astral. Their problem is reliably having a Forger for them. If I wanted to Clam-hoard, I'd probably take a minimal Pretender, have her Forge Clams until I get to Construction 6, then bust out with the Bracelets.

Arco has a somewhat more random time of it. They're not helped nearly as much due to no innate water gem income, and no guarantee of being able to Forge them. Their Mystics also cost about the same in upkeep as a Arch theurg.

Tien Chi is also another clear winner here. The Celestial Masters can Forge them, and S&A also gets the Master of the Five Elements to hold them.

I'm not sure if this is a good idea, per se. It might limit it, but it would probably just shift it around.

If you wanted to add a drawback to the Pearls, as someone else suggested Horror Marking is probably the easiest way to do it.

Of course, if you want to deal with Clams _after_ they're established, you might go with something like:

Artificer's Bane (Evocation 6 or so)
Ritual
FFFFF
40 Fire gems

Target a Province. Each and every item in that province has a 10% chance of being destroyed. All items on the casting mage are automatically destroyed.

(That Last part is to 'up the cost' of the spell, since few people other than Pretenders will naturally have Fire-5.)

Hrm. I'm in a pensive mood...

Scott

Re: Two Birds with One Stone Suggestion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Since it is likely to be more powerful than wind ride, it would have to have a similar cost.

I personally don't think there should be any way to get items from a commander without killing that commander and having the chance that it gets picked up.

Re: Two Birds with One Stone Suggestion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Fair enough, but that tends towards SCing. Not criticizing, just making an observation.

What would you think of ways of destroying artifacts? Probably should be Fire. (This is specifically thematically linked towards destruction rather than disenchantment because we don't want to give this sort of ability to Astral magic.)

You might also make a Blood magic Ritual that Curses an item and Horror Marks the person holding it.

Just a few thoughts.

Scott

Re: Two Birds with One Stone Suggestion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You can already wish for the artifact and throw it away if you like. Other than that, I'd rather not see any way to destroy magical items.

Re: Two Birds with One Stone Suggestion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Added bonus: It relieves SCs of their equipment, which really puts the hurt on SCs. I thought limiting SCs was also something on a wish list? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Whether SC's need to be toned down is debatable, but this spell would totally nerf them, IMHO.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">While more of an issue, this would make people break their armies down into smaller bites, something that I feel should be done anyway.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I love the big honkin' armies! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif The massive battles are one of my favorite parts of the game!

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Really? This spell costs half as much as a Clam, so I _should_ be able to cast this twice as much, if I have the mages to do it.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Which makes it only viable for water-magic nations to combat the clam hording?

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, if he's stealing stuff, he isn't making Clams, now is he? That was rather the point of the exercise, wasn't it...?</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">My point was that the clam horder would likely have a healthy water gem income, and a surplus of water mages to be able to cast the spell, while non-clam-hording nations are much less likely to have those conditions. (ie: Marignon wouldn't have an easy time using this fix.)

[ May 28, 2004, 04:29: Message edited by: LintMan ]

Re: Two Birds with One Stone Suggestion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, it would add a bit of extra cost (10 gold + upkeep + occasional replacement scouts) to each clam plus the extra micromanagement annoyance. But the effect could be upped to, say "death unless MR save, disease otherwise".

But really, I still think the best solution would be to have some good high end water spells to make it worth saving up those water gems for. I'm thinking mainly of things like maybe a beneficial global effect spell (ie: along FotA or GoH lines), a non-ocean-based global effect spell (ie: doesn't just effect ocean or coastal provinces), some high-end amphib summons, some mid-range amphib summons that don't have gold upkeep cost (a huge downside to sea trolls!), a remote summon, and/or some powerful but pricey magic items.

Some quick ideas:

* "Harvest Rains" - increases supply in all provinces, according to dominion strength
* "Fountain of Youth" - increases pop growth in all provinces, according to dom strength. (Hmm. I really like this one!)
* "Weather Control" - caster specifies preferred heat/cold scale, and globally, all provinces are pushed towards it. (I'm thinking it'd be a weaker effect than Illwinter, but more flexible)
* "Ice Castle" - It magically never completely melts, but its defense is based on province heat/cold scale.
* "Sea Nymphs" - mid-high summon: amphib, awe +0, charm attack
* "Summon giant crocodile(s)" - low-mid range summon, amphib, maybe comparable strength to nature lion or kithaironic lion spells.
* "Summon Yeti" - mid or high-end thugish summon, possibly an SC-able chassis.
* "Call Nessie" - high-end amphib summon, maybe comparable toughness/cost to Tarrasque
* "Staff of Frost" - 40 water gem item, casts falling frost
* "Helm of Liquid Form" - 80 water gem item, reduces all physical damage taken by 75%
* "Staff of Speed" - 40-80 Water gem item, casts quickness on units up to say range 20, area 1-2

Just some ideas... I know I'd forge a lot less clams if I had stuff like this to use those water gems for.

Re: Two Birds with One Stone Suggestion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Nice. Except that in the pros and cons list, one of the things listed as an pro was that it was one of the few things Atlantis had going for it.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Er, so? Any fix would also take massive hoarding away from Atlantis (and every one else), no? If Atlantis and/or water magic need another (less potent and fiddly) boon, I'm sure one can be invented. Several have already been proposed.

Quote:

It made me think though. What if only a water-mage could use it? Dont we have oher items like that? (the only thing that come to mind at the moment is the stupid crown that only Ermor can use but I keep getting from indies)

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I think that's a neat idea, in that it would add mage investment to the equation. Someone might want to re-do the numbers to see what effect it has on the abuse potential. However I'd say that if you are concerned about affecting nation balance whilst fixing clam abuse, that as others have pointed out, this just reduces the number of nations that can efficiently abuse it, without removing the abuse. What I like about my idea is it by definition guarantees there will not be an abusive amount of clam income, because there would be a limit.

Just increasing the gem cost might be sufficient, too. Adjust the math that was done - seems like there must be a balance point. 20 Water gems? 40? 20 Water + 10 or 20 Astral? I sort of think 20 Water would blunt the problem, but I'd want to see the resulting change in the numbers that were done before.

I would be happy to see another use or two for water gems, though I don't agree that there aren't good things to do with water gems - there are quite a few. The problem is that the clam hoard thing gets so powerful once the curve gets out of control.

PvK

Re: Two Birds with One Stone Suggestion
 

I like the idea of making clams unfavorable by introducing better waterspells. Heres my proposal:

The CURE. Cure all afflication on a single unit/leader.

The cost should be quite high, of course. I do realize that this makes the SC problem worse, if there is one, but that could be cured with:

Dry-freeze: Kill random unit, range 100, 100% success rate.

That would make an effective counter to the one-SC attack (since defenders go first; for defenders summons would be an effective countermeasure)

Man, would I like to be able to mod spell effects? :-)

Re: Two Birds with One Stone Suggestion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Nice. Except that in the pros and cons list, one of the things listed as an pro was that it was one of the few things Atlantis had going for it.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Clams on mages in the water should then have a better chance of their clams generating a pearl. Live wet clams are better than dry, dead, clams. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Maybe a 75/25 weighting. That way Atlantis still gets its benefit, while land nations have some reason for building clams, but not to the point of absurdity, since the clams would get to a point of diminishing returns.

Hmmm. Maybe if magic items could be deconstructed, recovering say, 10-50% of the gems that went in?

Re: Two Birds with One Stone Suggestion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Nice list. Keep thinking. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

The weather control might also give a 10% protection against certain special events and spells (flood, tornado, rains)

Re: Two Birds with One Stone Suggestion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">20 Water makes Clams Atlantis-only, really. That means it requires a Water-3 Mage to Forge (or 2 with FotA). Not only does Atlantis have the only National Water-3 Mages, it also has a 1/8 chance of having Earth-2 Mages, which enable the Earth Boots/Dwarven Hammer progression.

10W10S, OTOH, hands the Clams to Rlyeh. Not just Rlyeh, but Arco and Pythium (Arco more than Pythium, though). Atlantis doesn't lose that much, thanks to the Deep Seers. Caelum loses out, unless they play with a Pretender made to make Clams. Tien Chi would use their Jade Emperor.

Another possible solution is to have the Clam automatically graft to the forger. This sort of makes use of Gandalf's idea, but takes it further. Clearly, if Clams are unremovable (and auto-attach to Forger), then the number of Clams a given player can have, max, is twice the number of Mages able to Forge the Clam (barring bizarre Misc. slots).

A weird effect of this is to make the Robe of the Sea more useful, as a Water-1 mage with it could Forge 2 Clams, as opposed to only the one if they had a Water Bracelet.

Of course, the most radical idea I have is to simply make the Pearls unremovable (you'd probably want to do this to all items/Pretenders that auto-produce Gems/Pearls). Those items would then change from an investment opportunity to more of a battlefield-enhancer. If this was done, I'd hope to see at least one gem-producing item per path (except probably blood slaves... though that would fix the Blood Sacrifice problem).

I note that this thread has completely derailed from its original intent. Ah well; I guess it happens. Does anyone think the item-destruction ideas are good?

Scott

Re: Two Birds with One Stone Suggestion
 

Clams only work when equipped on mages?

Rationale: Magic flows more strongly around a mage, the clam uses this energy to create astral pearls.

Effect: Stops Scouts and other cheap things being able to hold clams. Makes upkeep for dedicated clam holders more expensive, while still keeping clams just as useful for mages to carry around to supply them with gems in the field.

Would help a bit? I think?

Re: Two Birds with One Stone Suggestion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Wouldn't help with clams, imo. Typically you have a regular fleet of mages all researching, especially with the nations that are prone to clam hoarding.

But if it were done for all gem producing items, it might be an idea - no more black servant or other petty undead being used for fever fetishes, for example.

Re: Two Birds with One Stone Suggestion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You'd still be able to drop them on Revenants and Spectres (cheap 9/10 death gem mage summons) pretty easily, and you'd get at least some value out of them as researchers while they also carry the fetishes.

But I strongly suspect that fever fetishes are going to no longer work on undead in the next patch. (I have no inside info: I just remember seeing a few forum Posts by one of the illwinter guys being surprised that they worked on undead, and implying that was in need of correction.)

Re: Two Birds with One Stone Suggestion
 

Here's another idea for clams. What if we treated them similar to the "seeing" orb in LOTR.

You can have a cheap water thaumaturgy spell ("Seeing Pool"... or something) that gives you an "Astral Window" into every provence that contains a clam. Perhaps it could Last for one turn for each clam found in the provence.

You could still make a strategy out of building clams but you wouldn't be able to do it in secret. I'm not sure how many distance attack spells will effect underwater provences, but this would certainly make the land nations think twice before forging lots of clams.

Re: Two Birds with One Stone Suggestion
 

It seems to me that Bayushi's theft spell would make it hard for a non-water nation to hang onto any items, if a water nation decides to target them for large-scale theft.

I like the idea of making Water a more powerful school, and a theft spell of some sort could be neat. But not one that is so easy to cast. How about having an item-theft combat spell instead of a ritual? That'd make it significantly trickier to use well, especially if the mage needs to have an open item slot for whatever he randomly targets.

[ May 31, 2004, 03:31: Message edited by: Vynd ]